Crysis "Pre-Release" Demo Unveiled, Brings PCs to Their Knees

Far Cry developer Crytek released a "pre-release" demo of its upcoming title, Crysis, last Friday, dazzling gamers with its graphics but leaving many of them dismayed over performance woes even on the heftiest systems.

The demo features the first full level of the game, where the protagonist operates as part of a special unit dropped into a hostile territory patrolled by North Korean soldiers. The scenery and setting is almost identical to that of Far Cry, the company's hit debut title released several years ago.

Gameplay options, however, are more varied, as the player has at his disposal a "nanosuit" capable of bursts of cloaked movement, extra strength or blazing speed. Weapons, too, come with available alternate options, such as silencers and sights.

The main and much-anticipated highlight of the demo though, of course, is the graphical beauty. Trees and foliage appear in unprecedented detail, and shader, shadow, blur and HDR effects are put to impressive use.

Much to their dismay, however, gamers on various gaming sites noted that they also found their frame rates anemic at high settings. An average of 20 to 30 frames per second was common even with a $500 part such as the Nvidio 8800 Ultra and dual and quad-core processors, users reported.

Additionally, Vista 64 owners in particular reported problems running the DX10 mode, which features extra graphics settings not available in DX9. Then again, some of the supposedly exclusive DX10 features have already been unlocked in DX9 by an enterprising user.

The game is due to be released in two weeks and will be patched for SLI support.